


Scars

by Lianria



Series: Thank you for your Service [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, game of thrones
Genre: F/M, PTSD, Robert Baratheon being a man hoe, Stark family feels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-11
Updated: 2019-09-11
Packaged: 2020-10-14 11:28:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20600021
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lianria/pseuds/Lianria
Summary: While taking the family out to dinner to celebrate Arya's homecoming, Ned muses on the military and its effect on his family.





	Scars

**Author's Note:**

> Didn't plan on this being a series, but the more I thought about it, it made sense cause there's a lot to work with here.

Eddard Stark smiled softly to himself as he looked around the room he had reserved at the families favorite steak house. Even after pushing dinner back an hour, they had still been waiting on Arya and Gendry for about thirty minutes before the two walked in smiling like mad.

  
He remembered those days.

Those times when he couldn't get enough of just feeling Cat's hand in his, and her almost desperate need to cling to him and feel his pulse beat. He remembered the fear in her eyes every time he left during the war, fear he'd be hurt or killed, fear that he wouldn't come back, and the fear that he would come back but he wouldn't be the same. He remembered watching Robb and Jon grow up those first few years in pictures sent in letters, getting a micro tape player to listen to Cat recording the days as his deployments got longer and longer.

His heart ached thinking about how much he had missed with the boys, how strong Cat had been when he begged her to adopt his little sisters son, only weeks younger than Robb. He knew she had hated him for leaving for a deployment so soon after they got all of the paperwork, leaving her as a young mother now to two babies with only Benjen and her sister Lysa for help. He knew her fear was having to keep doing that alone.

Cat had been strong through it all, even putting up with his worried phone calls through the Silent Sister's when a tape had cut off at the sound of one of the boys crying, Ned had forgotten it had taken the tape over a week to get to him and had panicked. He could still hear the exasperation in her voice as the emergency call was relayed. He had retired from the military when Sansa was only a toddler and had entered into politics on the local level wanting to take care of his home area.

  
Robb and Jon had enlisted right out of college, wanting to get military experience because it helped in the police force and looked good on a political resume. Ned remembered the stars in Arya's eyes when she looked at her big brothers in uniform. He also remembered Sansa drooling over their friend Theon in his Naval uniform. The boys all carried their training from the military into their lives now, but Ned knew Theon struggled with more PTSD than either Jon or Robb did after spending some time as a POW. The piss poor treatment he had received upon his discharge was what had encouraged Sansa to pursue her degree in psychology.

  
While he had been proud of his sons for their service, Ned was terrified when Arya announced she was forgoing college to enlist immediately. His baby girl, all bony knees and gangly arms covered head to toe in muck, and never really fitting in with any of her siblings. At her graduation, she had presented them with Gendry, a fellow recruit and her boyfriend. He was infantry and she was munitions and artillery. Gendry and Ned got on like a house on fire, both scared out of their minds at the thought of the tiny woman handling explosive material, and both fiercely proud when she could put anyone who challenged her into the dirt, and a shared hatred of the Kings Landing FC. Ned had known after about four conversations with Gendry that if their relationship survived his four year contract, it would survive for the long haul. The distance when either one was deployed was hard on both, but they wrote letters, and video called when they could. At the end of his four year contract, Gendry transitioned to civilian life and used his veterans education benefit to start his Mechanical Engineering degree. He and Arya had surprised everyone when a back yard cookout had turned into a wedding.

Ned was sure Cat still hadn't forgiven Arya for getting married barefoot while holding a beer.

  
Ned smiled as Ygritte made a joke about the rather large hickey blooming on Arya's neck and the very visible scratch marks on Gendry's, asking how many rounds they had gone in the four hours since the soccer game. Arya just stuck out her tounge and snuggled further into her husbands arms while Gendry smiled proudly and mouthed a number Ned refused to think about. Ygritte hooted in laughter and approval as Arya's face burned.

  
Gendry opened his mouth to say something when a loud crash and a scream from the main dining area caused them all to jump. Theon froze, while Gendry and Arya dove under the table for cover. Ned himself was halfway out of his chair putting himself between the sound and his family, Robb and Jon had grabbed the girls and pushed them behind them, as Jon reached to where his service pistol normally sat. Sansa looked out the door to see what had happened before turning to her family.

  
"It's okay, a busser just tripped with a full bin of dishes and lady got soaked in someone's leftover ice water. Everything is okay. Deep breaths everyone."

  
No one said a word beyond that as everyone slowly found their way back to their seats, all facing the open doorway with their backs along a wall.  
Theon excused himself to step outside, while Gendry and Arya no longer clung to each other out of affection but almost desperation. Robb managed to distract the girls from the sudden tension in the room that even the four year old's could feel, their eyes watching the adults warily. Arya buried her face in Gendry's neck whispering to him before the pair stepped outside to join Theon. Cat looked at the pair worriedly before Ned gently took her hand in his and smiled at her.

  
"It'll take them time sweetheart. Arya's still active duty and Gendry is still working through what he saw when he was out there. It'll be alright."

  
Ned looked up as his children came back in with Gendry holding Arya back from punching a laughing Theon.

  
"Hey it's not my fault you two can't got five minutes with out playing grabass!"

  
"I swear to god Greyjoy shut up or I will spill about the time I caught you in the laundry room."

  
Gendry clamped a hand over Arya's mouth before she could make any further threats, to which she promptly licked him.

  
The military had touched them all, in wildly different ways, and it had left his children with some scars, the same ones he had gotten from his time. He knew they were lucky, a large number of veterans had worse reactions and no support. Like Robert, Ned's former best friend and oddly enough Gendry's biological father. His reaction to his military service was to drink like a fish and sleep with anything that moved. It had cost Robert his relationship with Ned's sister Lyanna. Sadly his drinking got worse upon hearing about her death after giving birth to Jon. He had married for political reasons but his alcoholism was what had been the end of him.

  
Ned smiled to himself as he watched his family dig into their food, the happy conversations flowing again as Arya was explaining the change in her MOS from Munitions to Linguistics after her promotion. She had been learning the local languages from her duty stations for fun and her commanding officer had noticed. They wanted her as a translator, and she was excited because with the testing she had done already and the classes they wanted her to take, she would end up with a degree in Linguistics. Gendry was thrilled because this meant for the next eighteen months at least, she was home.

  
Then Catelyn just had to bring up more grandbabies.

  
Arya's only response was a wicked smirk at her blushing husband and saying that "practice makes perfect."


End file.
